FRANCES STEYER, 86

Frances Steyer, 86, of Blair died Tuesday, Jan. 13, 1998, at Crowell Memorial Home in Blair.

Services will be 2 p.m. Friday at First United Methodist Church. Burial will be in the Fort Calhoun Cemetery.

Mrs. Steyer was born Oct. 14, 1911, in Shelby, Iowa to Joseph and Sarah Sallman. The family moved to St. Paul, Neb., when she was a girl. She and her older sister, Esther, helped their mother, a nurse, care for patients in their home hospital.

She graduated from St. Paul High School in 1928. She attended Hastings College for two years. She then taught grades 7 – 12 in a two-room country school near St. Paul for two years. She then attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and graduated in 1933 with a bachelor’s degree with an English major and Latin minor. She taught high school in Elm Creek, Neb., from 1933 to 1935. In 1935, she was hired to teach English and Latin at Fort Calhoun High School.

She met Ralph Steyer there and they were married at her parents’ home in St. Paul on Aug. 20, 1937. They lived in Fort Calhoun and she continued to teach until their son, William was born in January 1940. Because of her husband’s career with the Farm Security Administration (now Farmer’s Home Administration), which required relocating occasionally, they moved to Grand Island in 1942 and their daughter Kathy was born there in 1944. In 1945, they moved to St. Paul and their daughter Dorothy was born in 1946. Later that year, they moved to Clay Center. In 1948, they settled in Blair, where son Phil was born in 1953. After the children were all in school, she began to work as a substitute teacher, at the Blair Public Library and taught Latin at Blair High School for a year. In the early 1960s, she returned to teaching full time at Fort Calhoun High School. She later moved to the Arlington School District, where she both taught English and served as high school librarian before retiring in the mid-1970s. After a year off, she returned to Fort Calhoun High School for a two-year stint as librarian before retiring for good in the late 1970s. She had been a resident of Crowell Memorial Home for the past three years.

She was an active member of the American Association of University Women; Blair Rose Society; Order of Eastern Star; and the First United Methodist Church.

Survivors are daughters and son-in-law, Kathy Steyer, Blair; and Dorothy and Russell Stone of Los Angeles, Calif.; a son and daughter-in-law, Phil and Kate Steyer, Anchorage, Alaska; two grandchildren, Jennifer Nemanich of Los Angeles and Alex Steyer of Anchorage; sisters- and brothers-in-law; nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews.

She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Ralph; a sister, Esther and a son, William.

Memorials may be given to the Blair Public Library.

Campbell-Aman Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.